Massage devices to massage a skin surface of a human body and promote a blood circulation for the purpose of beautification and health enhancement have been widely used. As these conventional massage devices, for example, an electrically-operated shoulder tapping machine, a lumbar kneading machine, a device to let a depressurized suction hole suck a portion of a person's skin and the like are known.
As a massage device using water, one example proposes a massage device provided with an opening to introduce pressurized fluid into a cylindrical body whose one end is closed and the other end is opened in the inner-circumference tangential direction, an opening to introduce outside air into the above-mentioned closed end in the center of the cylindrical body and further, a guide cylinder outside the cylindrical body to suck in the vicinity of a spouting port. Here, a person's skin can be sucked with the negative-pressure region in the vicinity of the spouting port expanded by letting the spouted water flow reversely through the guide cylinder.
In addition, another example discloses a suction washing machine provided with an opened flow-out in a front side of an expanded guide section to let spouted water flow out.
Furthermore, yet another example of a washing machine using the suction effect by the vortical flow discloses a massage washing machine provided with an air-flow separation plate which enable a user to use in the air.
The massage device by using water vortical flow has a problem in that water splashes in all directions from the spouting port. For example, one massage device has a problem in that if using the massage device in the air, the spouted water does not splash so much as long as the guide cylinder is pressed against the skin. However, if the guide cylinder is released from the skin, the spouted water splashes conically in all directions and wets the user, persons around the user, and/or a bathroom's wall in an undesirable manner, causing the user or persons to feel uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, a massage washing machine is provided with an air-water separation plate to prevent water from splashing by separating a spouting section and suction section of vortical flow and applying the vortical flow passed through a passage hole of a one-through plate to a splash-prevention bent section. However, in this massage washing machine, since the spouting section and the suction section are separated, the whole length of the machine has to be designed to be longer, reducing the suction force and preventing a depression or vibration effect due to vortical flow from affecting a skin. In addition, the suction section is smaller than the spouting port so that the area receiving the suction force is smaller. Furthermore, since the suction port is closely stuck to the skin, this brings about a problem in that it is hard to move the main unit of the massage machine.
Meanwhile, as a message method to add to a human body various types of bioeffects such as blood circulation and removal of metabolic decomposition product, and psychological effects such as relaxation and the like, a massage method with physical vibration such as “tapping” or “kneading” is effective as well as the suction massage method to suck and deform a site on the person's skin subject to treatment.
However, the conventional massage devices as described above have emphasized only the suction effect but have not considered the enhancement of massage effect by intentionally generating physical vibration.